Preschool- Oceans

So Ollie and I have been focusing on oceans. More specifically, what lives in them. He has really loved this study. He can now tell you which shark is the largest, how an octopus protects itself, and many fun facts about the starfish along with several other fun tidbits of knowledge. He is such a smart boy!

One of the most important factors in our adventures is our information. We love our local library and get many great books there. They have a ton about oceans. We also use the internet a bunch. There is so much information! It is a lifesaver when Ollie asks a question that I don't know the answer to.

After our adventures with preschool co-op, we started by studying octopuses. We read up on them quite a bit. Ollie was fascinated by the way they escape prey--hiding, running or spewing ink. He was also interested to discover that an octopus's mouth is inbetween all of his tentacles. We made an octopus by stuffing an old sock with plastic bags, then tying a string under them and cutting the "leg" of the sock into 8 pieces, such a great exercise in counting! Here he is with his octopus. Of course it was swimming so it's a bit blurry!

 After discovering many tantalizing starfish facts and watching one eat a calm, both boys got the opportunity to use their senses and create a bumpy starfish. They simply glued raw oatmeal to a star I cut out of paper. It was a bit messy but it was fun! This activity and the next one came from the book "Kitchen Table Play and Learn."

Here I drew an underwater scene in white crayon on white paper. Ollie then painted it with watercolors to discover what animals were there. I do say, if you do this, be sure to really color your picture in thoroughly or they won't be able to tell what is there. Ollie did enjoy this but kept telling me that the shark was a dinosaur. I guess my artistic ability has never been fabulous!

I borrowed this idea from a great little blog that I love called Discovery Days and Montessori Moments.  She recently had her child create a winter scene with little plastic animals and white playdoh. I had Ollie create an underwater scene with some plastic sea animals and blue playdoh. He enjoyed this and it morphed into a long fun experience. Not only did he create a scene but he hid them in the dough, he made prints with them and he decided to make an urchin as well. We played for probably an hour. Our sea creatures interacted and it was quite amusing. 

Finally, We did a shark activity. I cut out different sharks to scale  and had ollie arrange them on his paper from biggest to smallest. I randomly picked 5 but I did make sure to include the very biggest which is the whale shark. The whale shark can reach nearly 50ft! That's 30 ft more than a Great White Shark.To make them to scale I simply drew them at half the cm. So since the whale shark reaches 50 ft, I drew him at 25 cm.  I did not get a picture which is probably ok since I am not a artist but they passed as sharks!

Fun New Talent

My baby is growing up. He has weaned. He is running around and now he is saying animal sounds! What is happening to my baby! Here is a video of his new talent. He was a bit distracted by the camera. You can tell we haven't recorded him as much. Poor deprived kid.

Preschool Co-op

So a small group of mamas and I get together a couple times a month to do "preschool." It's very light-hearted and the kids really have a great time. Today, we got together for the first time since our Christmas break and we talked about oceans. Ollie and I have been exploring this topic a bit and he is really excited about it. I bought a map at the local learning store and he is all about it. Of course, when he sees maps in books he often wants to find where we live, and where Africa and China are. Strange, but hey whatever floats your boat buddy.

 He knows there are 5 oceans and can name "Southern." For those of you who do not know, at some point in the recent future, the Antarctic Ocean was renamed the Southern ocean. I was very confused when I first opened our new map and did a quick google search to discover it had been renamed. I am not sure why.  Here is Ollie on a previous day, labeling the oceans.

When "his friends" arrived, we started by looking at the map and talking about how many oceans there are and what their names are. Then we read The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor.The book is really neat and has a lot of information. It proved to be a bit long for a group of preschoolers although I think most would have loved it sitting on their own mom's lap reading it. 

We then moved to the table to make sea urchins. We made them by taking play-doh and sticking a bunch of toothpicks into it. Tonight at dinner, Ollie told Bob that the urchins have those spikes to protect themselves from predators. Well done kid!

                       Rex with his urchin

Ollie and Quinn

After the sea urchins, we made "ocean bags." Each child got a gallon ziploc bag and a bottle of hair gel. After squeezing in the hair gel, the kids added some blue food coloring, and glitter. Ollie is like me, if he sees something sparkly, he gets distracted. Before I knew what happened, he yacked off the lid of the glitter and dowsed himself with it. He then decided to try to brush it off himself (sigh). We did get a bit of glitter inside the bag. The kids then used the bags to practice writing letters. For some reason, I took no pictures of this. Go figure. 

While the big kids worked on there ocean bags, I had the brilliant idea of letting the  babies play in a sensory bin I had made. Inside, I put shredded blue paper, shredded cellophane, and various sea creatures we have around the house as well as a few I purchased at the dollar store. This was a huge hit! The only problem was the aftermath. I now remember why I don't buy Easter grass. It is a pain! It was from one end of the house to the other. 

For a snack, I gave the kids a real wholesome one! They each received four calm shells with numbers on them. They had to place that number of marshmallows on each one. Ollie quickly gobbled his as soon as he put a few on his first one. You'd like he was deprived. 

Hannah and her clams

We did a few other not as fun activities that the kids seemed to like. All in all, it was a good day. The kids had a blast playing together and I think they learned a thing or two. 

Matching and Dotting

We haven't seemed to do as many planned activities lately. Its been kind of nice. We've played a lot of dinosaurs, monsters and hide N seek. Friday, I had Ollie do a little work. I saw this idea on pinterest. I took the letters of his name and wrote them in capital on clothes pins and in lowercase on squares of paper. Ollie then had to match the capital letter to the lower case. He really had fun. We then worked on arranging his letters in order to spell his name. Fun! Fun!

Ollie with his new Tracing Trails book

For Christmas, we received a set of bingo dotters. They are so much fun. The boys had a blast making art with them. Dawson enjoyed licking them as well. I am so thankful for non toxic art supplies! Here they are:

Christmas!

We had a very eventful Christmas. We have three sets of Grandparents so we were very, very busy. On Christmas Eve, we spent the day at Plaza Lanes (bowling center) with my Father-In-Law and his wife Mel. IT was a blast. The kids really had a great time. We then took them home for a short Siesta before heading over to their house for presents and pizza. Boy oh boy were they spoiled at Grandma Mel's and Grandpa Jim's! Each received oodles of fun stuff (and some practical).

Christmas morning the boys woke up to stockings and gifts from us. We don't do Santa per se. We let Ollie know right from the start that we pretend Santa comes. This was not real popular with him. The reason we do this is because we feel like telling them things like Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy are real and then later telling them they are not but God is when you can't see either is confusing. I know many people disagree with us and that is ok. We don't judge other's decisions to participate in Santa so please don't judge ours not to. We hustled and bustled after presents and attended the 9 am service at church. I feel like the season gets so busy that we often forget that it is about the presents or the parties; it's about Jesus. It was so nice to slow down and remember what it is all about.

Later Christmas Day, we headed to Nana Betsy and Papa Wayne's house (Bob's mom and her husband). The kids once again got spoiled with all kinds of new toys.  Kaleb, Ollie and Dawson enjoyed playing together. They ran up and down the house shrieking in excitement. Whew! What a day.

One of the great benefits of new toys is all the independent play that takes place after they receive them! WE spent Monday home and Tuesday evening headed back to Minnesota to go with Jade and Lilah to her chemo appointment on Wednesday morning. She did really well with it. I also spent Friday with Jade, Bella and Lilah. It was so nice to be with them and play games. Jade and I got a chance to go out for a walk and then hung out upstairs eating crab dip and watching Law and Order. It was amazingly quiet without my boys there!

Saturday was Christmas at my parents. Unfortunately, my uncle got in an accident that night and he and his family were not there. We also we so sad that Lilah, Jade and Kurt couldn't come. It's not worth the risk of her picking up our germs. My grandpa Curt and cousin Molly were both there. We enjoyed family and fellowship and of course--more presents! Man!

Christmas was very different this year for obvious reasons. It made me appreciate things much more. While I was out running errands and baking and preparing, my sister and her family were at the hospital. While I was bowling and hitting church and two family Christmases, Jade's church came to them and they were at home. I am so very thankful that Lilah is doing well and that she was home for Christmas. It was the best Christmas present ever. God is doing remarkable things. As a matter of fact, at her appointment yesterday they ran bloodwork and her counts were so good that she didn't have to have a transfusion! I'd say God is doing miraculous things in her. I am thankful that Christ was born many Christmas' ago so that we would have a Savior. Life is so very fragile and you never know when. Please don't deceive yourself into believing that you can get to Heaven by being good enough. There isn't "good enough." There is only Christ. He took your place. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and will enjoy many blessings this year has to offer.

Emotions

I love her!

I'm really far behind on blogging but I don't think today is the day to catch up. As many of you know, my sweet little 5 year old niece was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. It has been a really crazy few weeks. She was diagnosed on December 12th. She's already had two spinal tabs and bone marrow biopsies. She's had 4 rounds of chemo. She is thin and hurting. She's having trouble walking up the stairs and is exhausted. It just doesn't seem fair.

As I sat and watched my children wrestle with Bapa, tears filled my eyes. Lilah can't wrestle right now. It  just doesn't seem fair. When I talked to my sister and she talked about her emotions and how she felt horrible for not realizing when Lilah needed help, I cried. It just doesn't seem fair.

Every baby who cried on that floor. Every child who lost their hair. Every parent I saw with a glossy look. The mom getting her tour of the oncology floor as we were packing up to leave. Knowing that this is not going away. Going to receive her treatments and being told "This will become the new normal." Not fair.

I wish I could take it all away. I wish I could hold my sister and take her pain (her bubble certainly wouldn't allow a hug that long!). She's an amazing woman. She's been through so much and she is so strong. I can't tell you all the specifics of her struggles as I am sure she would kill me. But there have been many ups and downs. She has overcome and overcome and overcome. She's fiercely loyal. One time in high school, she chewed out a staff member who wronged me. She covered for me. She taught me all kinds of things! She made it to  Des Moines within 5 hours when Dawson was admitted to the NICU. She reassured me, encouraged me, loved me, forgiven me. I hate that she is going through this. I hate Lilah is going through this.

 And I quote, " I don't know why I am smiling." 

And, " I hope I look normal."

I am sure this is a bit of rambling. It's just what came out. Please pray for them. Pray for Lilah. That she is healed and strengthened. Pray for Jade and Kurt and Bella. That they are all comforted. That they have strength to endure and that the Lord shelters them in the shadow of His wings.

Yeah Right!

I had a plan. We were going to make cross ornaments to give our neighbors with a Bible verse attached. It was going to be great. Dawson was going to have a great sensory experience decorating and painting something 3 dimensional.  And Ollie was going to sit and sort them and say, "Oooo. I think Ill paint this one red. This one, I'll paint blue and add silver glitter. And this one Mom, I'd like to add tissue paper." 

Strike 1:

Ollie: "Oh Mom! Why do we have all these airplanes?"

Strike 2:

Ollie: What do you think of my picture?

Me: Oh. I was hoping you would paint the crosses.

Ollie: What are they for?

Me: To put on the tree see?

Ollie: I am going to decorate the paper not the airplanes.

Me: OK

Dawson to was not interested in the "airplanes." He painted the paper and himself. 

Strike 3:
Ollie squeezed out each and every glitter glue tube onto the paper. As soon as he finished one, he squeezed out another and another. All I could do was laugh and ask Bob to come look.

Then, while I walked away to get something to clean up my littlest love, he decided it was time to start flinging paint and waving his paper around. His face, head, hands and arms were covered!

So, we have no ornaments. Oh well. The kids had fun. Bob laughed. All in all, it was a good afternoon!